Give flood grants to make homes resilient

The Know Your Flood Risk group has argued that home owners living in flood risk areas should be given grants to make properties more resilient to submersion.

As reported in The Independent, the campaigners say that funding should be made available in the same way that government cash is currently available to those wanting to make their homes more environmentally efficient.

They argue that, with climate change bringing increasingly extreme weather to the UK, it is no longer possible – or desirable – to build defences capable of protecting all UK properties at threat of inundation. Instead, Know Your Flood Risk says that more homes and businesses should be made flood resilient: designed, built and adapted in such a way that, if they are submerged, they can be made liveable again within days or weeks.

Currently, victims of major floods are eligible for £5,000 support after the event. But that, critics say, is putting the horse after the cart.

Mary Dhonau, chief executive of Know Your Flood Risk, said: “This is common sense. It is not only the ethical thing to do but it makes sense economically too. If we can help people with an initial spend that gets them back into their homes quicker after a flood, it reduces the long-term outlay in supporting those people with health and financial problems in the future. It would save the country money in the long run.”